How Academics REALLY Think

[Setherick]

So, tonight I had an email exchange with my PhD advisor (I refuse to spell this word with an "e" and spell check always underlines it to my chagrin) that exemplifies how academics really think when they aren't bloviating in front of students.

ME:

I read The Journal of Julius Rodman, but I'm struggling to make anything out of it (which could just be exhaustion on my part after conferences). On one hand, I like the idea of Poe telling a fake travel narrative set in a counterfactual history that precedes Lewis and Clark's "accepted" narrative of western exploration. But, on the other hand, I'm struggling to try and make sense of how exactly Poe was wanting to challenge that narrative. The incompleteness of the work may also be impeding my thoughts on it...sigh.

HIM:

Clue 1 for Poe: much of it is deliberate Non-Sense.

ME:

So the medium is the message. Just writing the counterfactual history is enough for Poe. Making people believe it is an added bonus.

Poe was a dick.

[IDaMan008]

Given what I remember about Poe criticism from my days as an undergraduate, it can get to be unbelievably dense and confusing pretty quickly. In fact, reading Lacan and Derrida's essays about "The Purloined Letter" nearly gave me a cerebral hemorrhage. (I can usually handle Derrida on his own, but Jacques Lacan has made my eye sockets spew more blood than any other literary critic I've ever read. Then again, I'm not really a fan of psychoanalysis as a lens for interpretation.)

I've got a collection of Poe's writings somewhere on my bookshelf. I'll have to see if the piece you mentioned is in there. It sounds like an interesting read. 

[Setherick]

I'll have to see if the piece you mentioned is in there. It sounds like an interesting read. 

It's not. 

About psychoanalytic criticism: Personally, of the big three psychoanalysts, I always find Lacan to be the most thought provoking. I like Freud as well, but it's something about Lacan's logic that makes me stop and (re)think scenarios. I'm also a big believer in his ideas of desire.